Alessandro turned and spoke to Ser Marco. ‘Omar Reis will stop at nothing to get us,’ he said.

Ser Marco fingered his beard and looked at the sky and the sea. He spat over the side. ‘A Turkish ship? Catch me?’ He smiled. ‘We’ll see.’

And then the bow was clear of the Venetian quay, and they were in the current, moving south, and east.

‘I wish . . .’ Swan said, and Alessandro looked at him.

‘You wish?’ he asked.

‘I wish I’d thought to send a decoy,’ Swan said. ‘Another ship, waiting on the south side of the city. In the old imperial docks.’

Alessandro laughed. ‘That will have to wait until next time,’ he said.

Swan looked at the Turkish squadron coming down the current behind them. ‘I don’t plan to come back,’ he said. ‘Ever.’

Of course, in the same breath he said that, he thought of the letter from Idris. And possibly, Khatun Bengül.

He sighed.

The mile passed very quickly.

He was in the bow, watching. From a little less than half a mile, he could see the water gate. Closer in, he could see fishing boats along the point, and at a quarter of a mile, he could see that there was activity near the gate.

There were too many boats, too close to the gate.

He wondered if they were there ahead of him.

How could they be?

Even Isaac hadn’t had time to sell him yet.

At two hundred yards, he saw that all the boats he was looking at were far too big.

At a hundred yards, he saw the tiny cockleshell which was their rowing boat. It was emerging from the gate – a tiny, low thing, with too much aboard. Nikephorus was lying atop the canvas sheet, and the rest of them – including Peter – were slipping into the water. The waves tossed the little boat dreadfully.

Swan ran aft along the companionway that passed between the rowers amidships.

‘That’s my boat!’ he said to Ser Marco.

‘That little thing?’ Ser Marco grunted. His eyes flicked up to the darkening sky. ‘We’ll tow her under if we throw her a line at this speed.’ Louder, he said to his timoneer, ‘Back your oars!’ He leaned over to the helmsman. ‘Lay me alongside that little boat. Don’t swamp it.’

The Venetian’s seamanship was incredible. The helmsman turned the ship – a minute turn, but one that allowed the hull to pass directly alongside the little rowing boat that bobbed in the current. It passed under the oars. A sailor at the first oar-port passed a rope to Nikephorus, who took it awkwardly – but he caught it. The oars remained stationary in the water, holding the Venetian galley in place, even as the current moved both boats together, out to sea.

Behind them, the three Turkish ships began to gain on them.

The acrobats clearly had had a plan of their own, because Irene appeared from the water with a coil of rope around her waist, and climbed over the ram – glitteringly naked, to the rapt admiration of the Arsenali. As soon as she belayed her rope, her comrades followed her – Andromache, followed by Constantios’s heavily muscled form, followed by Peter, who all but bounced up the side, and last of all, Apollinaris. By then, Swan was in the bows, giving each a hand as they came over the box that housed the marines in combat.

Alessandro gallantly threw oarsmen’s cloaks over the women. The oarsmen themselves applauded.

Amidships, a pair of sailors manhandled Nikephorus aboard.

Astern in the setting sun, the Turkish galleys were almost in bowshot.

Swan got Apollinaris up the side, and then turned and ran aft again. Nikephorus was aboard, and dry.

He had a bag in his hand.

Behind him the sailors were pitching bags from the small boat up on to the deck of the galley.

The first Turkish arrows began to fall, and Ser Marco turned to Swan. ‘What’s in the boat? The truth, now.’

Another bag came up the side.

‘Cardinal Bessarion’s library,’ Swan said.

Ser Marco nodded. ‘Give way, all!’ he roared, and the great oars bit the water. He looked aft, where the Turkish galleys were flying at them. ‘I love books,’ he said. His eyes met Swan’s. ‘But I love my oarsmen more.’

At their feet, the small boat – still attached to the galley by two ropes – seemed to skip along with the Venetian ship. The sailor who had been aboard throwing sacks leaped clear, and caught himself on one of the oar-ports – got a foot inboard, and then swung up and over the gunwale, as agile as an African monkey.

More than half of the cardinal’s collection was still in the boat.

Plato.

Aristotle.

Menander.

Epictetus and Aeschylus. A play by a Greek named Phrynichus, who had witnessed the fall of Miletus. A hundred poems by Sappho. The sayings of Heraklitus. A work on mathematics by Pythagoras.

Even as Swan watched, the Venetian ship gathered speed – and the two ropes towing the small boat began to skew her course.

He was still considering making the jump when Alessandro’s strong right arm pinned him to the gunwale. ‘No you don’t, you fool!’ Alessandro shouted.

Swan squirmed.

The bow of the little boat buried itself in a wave.

Almost instantly, the boat filled – just as a sailor cut the tow. The rowing boat tipped once, took another wave directly under Swan’s eyes – and sank.

The sacks – leather sacks, carefully tied – floated for a few moments. Long enough for Peter to seize a marine’s partisan, lean far out over the stern, and catch one. It hung from the point of the spear for a long moment, and the spear caught the last of the sun – and then Peter whipped the spear up over his head with all his strength, and the bag, flung as if by a trebuchet, passed over the stern and landed in the middle of the ship.

And before the Turkish galleys passed them, the rest of the bags sank into the waters of the Bosporus.

Swan watched them all sink. He stood there, at the stern rail, as the Turkish arrows fell around him, until Alessandro came and pulled him away. ‘It’s over,’ he said. ‘You did well. The cardinal never expected us to save his library. The actors are more important.’

‘They are?’

‘Some day perhaps the cardinal will tell us why.’ Alessandro shrugged. ‘Or perhaps they are people, and the scrolls are just the words of dead men.’

Swan met his eyes. ‘You don’t really believe that.’

Alessandro shrugged. ‘I stand with Ser Marco. I wouldn’t give the life of one Arsenali for a lost book by that faker, Aristotle. Or Plato the hypocrite.’ He shrugged.

Swan was watching the Turks. ‘They’re losing the race,’ he said.

Alessandro smiled. ‘There’s no ship on these waters as fast as a Venetian galley,’ he said.

Half an hour later, Swan collapsed to the deck and slept.

He woke in the night with the sort of headache he associated with drunkenness, and drank some water. Ser Marco was still with the helmsman. They were racing along, their big sail set and drawing.

Swan was diffident. He’d learned that the Venetian captain didn’t like to be interrupted on the command deck, even though it was the best place to stand on the ship, so he leaned over the rail forward of the helmsman’s station and watched the vaguely phosphorescent water race by.

‘Too tired to sleep?’ Ser Marco asked.

‘Yes, messire. Tired and thirsty. A little ill.’ Swan shrugged.

Ser Marco’s remaining teeth glittered in the moonlight when he smiled. He was missing all four in the centre, and it made him look sinister. ‘Overexertion, young man. I gather I owe you my life?’

Swan smiled. ‘Messire Claudio did the surgery. I merely pinned down a blood vessel.’

Ser Marco nodded. ‘I am grateful – but many men have saved my life over the years.’ He looked away.

Swan decided a change of topic was in order. ‘Where are we?’ he asked. When Ser Marco paused, he said, ‘I’m sorry. I know you don’t like to be bothered on the deck.’

Ser Marco grinned his demonic grin, and beckoned. ‘Come, young master. Join me on the sacred wooden boards of the command platform.’